Much of today's uncovered oil is in the form of viscous, low gravity crude oil found in shallow, low temperature reservoirs. These deposits of viscous oil are the target of substantial enhanced oil recovery efforts in the industry. Most of these reservoirs contain very high saturations of the viscous oil in a loosely consolidated or unconsolidated sandstone or siltstone matrix. A successful means of recovering the thick oil is to thin the oil thermally (steam or combustion) and produce the thinned oil to the surface. During production, substantial quantities of formation fluids and formation fines are produced to the surface, suspended in the crude oil. The produced fluid is then treated to separate the oil, water and solids.
The produced oil is then sold and the water is injected into water disposal wells, leaving the fines and formation sand. There is no present method or means for effective disposal of the fines.
Therefore, what is needed is a method to dispose of these produced fines in a beneficial way while avoiding an adverse environmental consequence.